« 


.  DIEGO 


ATLANTIC  READINGS 

NUMBER  17 

ON  READING  IN  RELATION 
TO  LITERATURE 

BY 

LAFCADIO  HEARN 


Atlantic  j/Hontfjlp  ipres*,  3nc. 

BOSTON 


Copyright,  19X1,  by 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 


ON  READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

BY    LAFCADIO    HEARN 

As  the  term  approaches  its  close,  I  wish  to  keep  my  prom 
ise  regarding  a  series  of  lectures  relating  to  literary  life  and 
work,  to  be  given  independently  of  texts  or  authorities, 
and  to  represent,  as  far  as  possible,  the  results  of  practical 
experience  among  the  makers  of  literature  in  different 
countries.  The  subject  for  this  term  will  be  Reading  — 
apparently,  perhaps,  a  very  simple  subject,  but  really  not  so 
simple  as  it  looks,  and  much  more  important  than  you  may 
think  it.  I  shall  begin  this  lecture  by  saying  that  very  few 
persons  know  how  to  read.  I  Considerable  experience  with 
literature  is  needed  before  taste  and  discrimination  can 
possibly  be  acquired;  and  without  these,  it  is  almost  impos 
sible  to  learn  how  to  read.  I  say  almost  impossible;  since 
there  are  some  rare  men  who,  through  a  natural  inborn 
taste,  through  a  kind  of  inherited  literary  instinct,  are  able 
to  read  very  well  even  before  reaching  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  years.  But  these  are  great  exceptions,  and  I  am  speak 
ing  of  the  average. 

For,  to  read  the  characters  or  the  letters  of  the  text  does 
not  mean  reading  in  the  true  sense.  You  will  often  find 
yourselves  reading  words  or  characters  automatically,  even 
pronouncing  them  quite  correctly,  while  your  minds  are 
occupied  with  a  totally  different  subject.  This  mere  mech 
anism  of  reading  becomes  altogether  automatic  at  an 
early  period  of  life,  and  can  be  performed  irrespective  of  at 
tention.  Neither  can  I  call  it  reading,  to  extract  the  narra 
tive  portion  of  a  text  from  the  rest  simply  for  one's  per- 


2         READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

sonal  amusement,  or,  in  other  words,  to  read  a  book  "for  the 
story."  Yet  most  of  the  reading  that  is  done  in  the  world 
is  done  in  exactly  this  way.  Thousands  and  thousands 
of  books  are  bought  every  year,  every  month,  I  might  even 
say  every  day,  by  people  who  do  not  read  at  all.  They  only 
think  that  they  read.  They  buy  books  just  to  amuse  them 
selves,  "to  kill  time,"  as  they  call  it;  in  one  hour  or  two 
their  eyes  have  passed  overall  the  pages,  and  there  is  left  in 
their  minds  a  vague  idea  or  two  about  what  they  have  been 
looking  at;  and  this  they  really  believe  is  reading.  Nothing 
is  more  common  than  to  be  asked,  "Have  you  read  such  a 
book?"  or  to  hear  somebody  say,  "I  have  read  such  and 
such  a  book."  But  these  persons  do  not  speak  seriously. 
Out  of  a  thousand  persons  who  say,  "I  have  read  this,"  or 
"I  have  read  that,"  there  is  not  one  perhaps  who  is  able  to 
express  any  opinion  worth  hearing  about  what  he  has  been 
reading.  Many  and  many  a  time  I  hear  students  say  that 
they  have  read  certain  books;  but  if  I  ask  them  some  ques 
tions  regarding  the  book,  I  find  that  they  are  not  able  to 
make  any  answer,  or  at  best,  they  will  only  repeat  some 
thing  that  somebody  else  has  said  about  what  they  think 
that  they  have  been  reading.  But  this  is  not  peculiar  to 
students;  it  is  in  all  countries  the  way  that  the  great  public 
devours  books.  And  to  conclude  this  introductory  part  of 
the  lecture,  I  would  say  that  the  difference  between  the 
great  critic  and  the  common  person  is  chiefly  that  the  great 
critic  knows  how  to  read,  and  the  common  person  does  not. 
No  man  is  really  able  to  read  a  book  who  is  not  able  to  ex 
press  an  original  opinion  regarding  the  contents  of  a  book. 
No  doubt  you  will  think  that  this  statement  of  the  case 
confuses  reading  with  study.  You  might  say,  "When  we 
read  history  or  philosophy  or  science,  then  we  do  read  very 
thoroughly,  studying  all  the  meanings  and  bearings  of  the 
text,  slowly,  and  thinking  about  it.  This  is  hard  study. 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE         3 

But  when  we  read  a  story  or  a  poem  out  of  class-hour,  we 
read  for  amusement.  Amusement  and  study  are  two  differ 
ent  things."  I  am  notsure  that  you  all  thinkthis;  butyoung 
men  generally  do  so  think.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  book 
worth  reading  ought  to  be  read  in  precisely  the  same  way 
that  a  scientific  book  is  read  —  not  simply  for  amusement ; 
and  every  book  worth  reading  should  have  the  same  amount 
of  value  in  it  that  a  scientific  book  has,  though  the  value 
may  be  of  a  totally  different  kind.  For,  after  all,  the  good 
book  of  fiction  or  romance  or  poetry  is  a  scientific  work;  it 
has  been  composed  according  to  the  best  principles  of  more 
than  one  science,  but  especially  according  to  the  principles 
of  the  great  science  of  life,  the  knowledge  of  human  nature- 
In  regard  to  foreign  books,  this  is  especially  true;  but  the 
advice  suggested  will  be  harder  to  follow  when  we  read  in  a 
language  which  is  not  our  own.  Nevertheless,  how  many 
Englishmen  do  you  suppose  really  read  a  good  book  in  Eng 
lish?  how  many  Frenchmen  read  a  great  book  in  their  own 
tongue?  Probably  not  more  than  one  in  two  thousand  of 
those  who  think  that  they  read.  What  is  more,  although 
there  are  now  published  every  year  in  London  upwards  of 
six  thousand  books,  at  no  time  has  there  been  so  little  good 
reading  done  by  the  average  public  as  to-day.  Books  are 
written,  sold,  and  read  after  a  fashion  —  or  rather  accord 
ing  to  the  fashion.  There  is  a  fashion  in  literature  as  well  as 
in  everything  else ;  and  a  particular  kind  of  amusement  be 
ing  desired  by  the  public,  a  particular  kind  of  reading  is 
given  to  supply  the  demand.  So  useless  have  become  to 
this  public  the  arts  and  graces  of  real  literature,  the  great 
thoughts  which  should  belong  to  a  great  book,  that  men 
of  letters  have  almost  ceased  to  produce  true  literature. 
When  a  man  can  obtain  a  great  deal  of  money  by  writing  a 
book  without  style  or  beauty,  a  mere  narrative  to  amuse, 
and  knows  at  the  same  time  that  if  he  should  give  three, 


4         READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

five,  or  ten  years  to  the  production  of  a  really  good  book,  he 
would  probably  starve  to  death,  he  is  forced  to  be  untrue  to 
the  higher  duties  of  his  profession.  Men  happily  situated  in 
regard  to  money  matters  might  possibly  attempt  something 
great  from  time  to  time;  but  they  can  hardly  get  a  hearing. 
Taste  has  so  much  deteriorated  within  the  past  few  years, 
that,  as  I  told  you  before,  style  has  practically  disappeared 
—  and  style  means  thinking.  And  this  state  of  things  in 
England  has  been  largely  brought  about  by  bad  habits  of 
reading,  by  not  knowing  how  to  read. 

For  the  first  thing  which  a  scholar  should  bear  in  mind  is 
that  a  book  ought  not  to  be  read  for  mere  amusement. 
Half-educated  persons  read  for  amusement,  and  are  not  to 
be  blamed  for  it;  they  are  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
deeper  qualities  that  belong  to  a  really  great  literature. 
But  a  young  man  who  has  passed  through  a  course  of  univer 
sity  training  should  discipline  himself  at  an  early  day  never 
to  read  for  mere  amusement.  And  once  the  habit  of  the 
discipline  has  been  formed,  he  will  even  find  it  impossible  to 
read  for  mere  amusement.  He  will  then  impatiently  throw 
down  any  book  from  which  he  cannot  obtain  intellectual 
food,  any  book  which  does  not  make  an  appeal  to  the  higher 
emotions  and  to  his  intellect.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the 
habit  of  reading  for  amusement  becomes  with  thousands  of 
people  exactly  the  same  kind  of  habit  as  wine-drinking  or 
opium-smoking;  it  is  like  a  narcotic,  something  that  helps 
to  pass  the  time,  something  that  keeps  up  a  perpetual  con 
dition  of  dreaming,  something  that  eventually  results  in  de 
stroying  all  capacity  for  thought,  giving  exercise  only  to  the 
surface  parts  of  the  mind,  and  leaving  the  deeper  springs  of 
feeling  and  the  higher  faculties  of  perception  unemployed. 

Let  us  simply  state  what  the  facts  are  about  this  kind  of 
reading.  A  young  clerk,  for  example,  reads  every  day  on 
the  way  to  his  office  and  on  the  way  back,  just  to  pass  the 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE         5 

time;  and  what  does  he  read?  A  novel,  of  course;  it  is  very 
easy  work,  and  it  enables  him  to  forget  his  troubles  for  a 
moment,  to  dull  his  mind  to  all  the  little  worries  of  his  daily 
routine.  In  one  day  or  two  days  he  finishes  the  novel;  then 
he  gets  another.  He  reads  quickly  in  these  days.  By  the 
end  of  the  year  he  has  read  between  a  hundred  and  fifty  and 
two  hundred  novels;  no  matter  how  poor  he  is,  this  luxury 
is  possible  to  him,  because  of  the  institution  of  circulating 
libraries.  At  the  end  of  a  few  years  he  has  read  several  thou 
sand  novels.  Does  he  like  them?  No;  he  will  tell  you  that 
they  are  nearly  all  the  same,  but  they  help  him  to  pass 
away  his  idle  time;  they  have  become  a  necessity  for  him; 
he  would  be  very  unhappy  if  he  could  not  continue  this  sort 
of  reading.  It  is  utterly  impossible  that  the  result  can  be 
anything  but  a  stupefying  of  the  faculties.  He  cannot  even 
remember  the  names  of  twenty  or  thirty  books  out  of 
thousands;  much  less  does  he  remember  what  they  contain. 
The  result  of  all  this  reading  means  nothing  but  a  cloudiness 
in  his  mind.  That  is  the  direct  result.  The  indirect  result  is 
that  the  mind  has  been  kept  from  developing  itself.  All  de 
velopment  necessarily  means  some  pain;  and  such  reading 
as  I  speak  of  has  been  employed  unconsciously  as  a  means 
to  avoid  that  pain,  and  the  consequence  is  atrophy. 

Of  course  this  is  an  extreme  case;  but  it  is  the  ultimate 
outcome  of  reading  for  amusement  whenever  such  amuse 
ment  becomes  a  habit,  and  when  there  are  means  close  at 
hand  to  gratify  the  habit.  At  present  in  Japan  there  is  lit 
tle  danger  of  this  state  of  things;  but  I  use  the  illustration 
for  the  sake  of  its  ethical  warning. 

This  does  not  mean  that  there  is  any  sort  of  good  litera 
ture  which  should  be  shunned.  A  good  novel  is  just  as  good ' 
reading  as  even  the  greatest  philosopher  can  possibly  wish  i 
for.  The  whole  matter  depends  upon  the  way  of  reading, 
even  more  than  upon  the  nature  of  what  is  read.  Perhaps 


6         READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

it  is  too  much  to  say,  as  has  often  been  said,  that  there  is  no 
book  which  has  nothing  good  in  it;  it  is  better  simply  to 
state  that  the  good  of  a  book  depends  incomparably  more 
for  its  influence  upon  the  habits  of  the  reader  than  upon  the 
art  of  the  writer,  no  matter  how  great  that  writer  may  be. 
In  a  previous  lecture  I  tried  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
superiority  of  the  child's  methods  of  observation  to  those 
of  the  man;  and  the  same  fact  may  be  noticed  in  regard  to 
the  child's  method  of  reading.  Certainly  the  child  can  read 
only  very  simple  things;  but  he  reads  most  thoroughly;  and 
he  thinks  and  thinks  untiringly  about  what  he  reads;  one 
little  fairy  tale  will  give  him  mental  occupation  for  a  month 
after  he  has  read  it.  All  the  energies  of  his  little  fancy  are 
exhausted  upon  the  tale;  and  if  his  parents  be  wise,  they  do 
not  allow  him  to  read  a  second  tale,  until  the  pleasure  of  the 
first,  and  its  imaginative  effect,  has  begun  to  die  away. 
Later  habits,  habits  which  I  shall  venture  to  call  bad,  soon 
destroy  the  child's  power  of  really  attentive  reading.  But 
let  us  now  take  the  case  of  a  professional  reader,  a  scientific 
reader;  and  we  shall  observe  the  same  power,  developed  of 
course  to  an  enormous  degree.  In  the  office  of  a  great  pub 
lishing  house  which  I  used  to  visit,  there  are  received  every 
year  sixteen  thousand  manuscripts.  All  these  must  be 
looked  at  and  judged;  and  such  work  in  all  publishing  houses 
is  performed  by  what  are  called  professional  readers.  The 
professional  reader  must  be  a  scholar,  and  a  man  of  very 
uncommon  capacity.  Out  of  a  thousand  manuscripts  he 
will  read  perhaps  not  more  than  one;  out  of  two  thousand 
he  may  possibly  read  three.  The  others  he  simply  looks  at 
for  a  few  seconds  —  one  glance  is  enough  for  him  to  decide 
whether  the  manuscript  is  worth  reading  or  not.  The  shape 
of  a  single  sentence  will  tell  him  that,  from  the  literary 
point  of  view.  As  regards  subject,  even  the  title  is  enough 
for  him  to  judge,  in  a  large  mimber  of  cases.  Some  manu- 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE         7 

scripts  may  receive  a  minute  or  even  five  minutes  of  his  at 
tention;  very  few  receive  a  longer  consideration.  Out  of 
sixteen  thousand,  we  may  suppose  that  sixteen  are  finally 
selected  for  judgment.  He  reads  these  from  beginning  to 
end.  Having  read  them,  he  decides  that  only  eight  can  be 
further  considered.  The  eight  are  read  a  second  time,  much 
more  carefully.  At  the  close  of  the  second  examination  the 
number  is  perhaps  reduced  to  seven.  These  seven  are  des 
tined  for  a  third  reading;  but  the  professional  reader  knows 
better  than  to  read  them  immediately.  He  leaves  them 
locked  up  in  a  drawer,  and  passes  a  whole  week  without  look 
ing  at  them.  At  the  end  of  the  week  he  tries  to  see  whether 
he  can  remember  distinctly  each  of  these  seven  manuscripts 
and  their  qualities.  Very  distinctly  he  remembers  three; 
the  remaining  four  he  cannot  at  once  recall.  With  a  little 
more  effort,  he  is  able  to  remember  two  more.  But  two  he 
has  utterly  forgotten.  This  is  a  fatal  defect;  the  work  that 
leaves  no  impression  upon  the  mind  after  two  readings  can 
not  have  real  value.  He  then  takes  the  manuscripts  out  of 
the  drawer,  condemns  two  (those  he  could  not  remember), 
and  re-reads  the  five.  At  the  third  reading  everything 
is  judged  —  subject,  execution,  thought,  literary  quality. 
Three  are  discovered  to  be  first  class ;  two  are  accepted  by 
the  publishers  only  as  second  class.  And  so  the  matter  ends. 
Something  like  this  goes  on  in  all  great  publishing  houses; 
but  unfortunately  not  all  literary  work  is  now  judged  in  the 
same  severe  way.  It  is  now  judged  rather  by  what  the  pub 
lic  likes;  and  the  public  does  not  like  the  best.  But  you  may 
be  sure  that  in  a  house  such  as  that  of  the  Cambridge  or  the 
Oxford  University  publishers,  the  test  of  a  manuscript  is 
very  severe  indeed;  it  is  there  read  much  more  thoroughly 
than  it  is  likely  ever  to  be  read  again.  Now  this  professional 
reader  whom  we  speak  of,  with  all  his  knowledge  and  schol 
arship  and  experience,  reads  the  book  very  much  in  the 


8         READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

same  way  as  the  child  reads  a  fairy  tale.  He  has  forced  his 
mind  to  exert  all  its  powers  in  the  same  minute  way  that  the 
child's  mind  does,  to  think  about  everything  in  the  book, 
in  all  its  bearings,  in  a  hundred  different  directions.  It  is 
not  true  that  a  child  is  a  bad  reader;  the  habit  of  bad  read 
ing  is  only  formed  much  later  in  life,  and  is  always  unnat 
ural.  The  natural  and  also  the  scholarly  way  of  reading  is 
the  child's  way.  But  it  requires  what  we  are  apt  to  lose  as 
we  grow  up,  the  golden  gift  of  patience;  and  without  pa 
tience  nothing,  not  even  reading,  can  be  well  done. 

Important  then  as  careful  reading  is,  you  can  readily  per 
ceive  that  it  should  not  be  wasted.  The  powers  of  a  well- 
trained  and  highly  educated  mind  ought  not  to  be  expended 
upon  any  common  book.  By  common  I  mean  cheap  and 
useless  literature.  Nothing  is  so  essential  to  self-training  as 
the  proper  choice  of  books  to  read;  and  nothing  is  so  uni 
versally  neglected.  It  is  not  even  right  that  a  person  of  abil 
ity  should  waste  his  time  in  "finding  out"  what  to  read. 
He  can  easily  obtain  a  very  correct  idea  of  the  limits  of  the 
best  in  all  departments  of  literature,  and  keep  to  that  best. 
Of  course,  if  he  has  to  become  a  specialist,  a  critic,  a  'pro 
fessional  reader,  he  will  have  to  read  what  is  bad  as  well  as 
what  is  good,  and  will  be  able  to  save  himself  from  much 
torment  only  by  an  exceedingly  rapid  exercise  of  judgment, 
formed  by  experience.  Imagine,  for  example,  the  reading 
that  must  have  been  done,  and  thoroughly  done,  by  such  a 
critic  as  Professor  Saintsbury.  Leaving  out  of  the  question 
all  his  university  training,  and  his  mastery  of  Greek  and 
Latin  classics,  which  is  no  small  reading  to  begin  with,  he 
must  have  read  some  five  thousand  books  in  the  English  of 
all  centuries  —  learned  thoroughly  everything  that  was  in 
them,  the  history  of  each  one,  and  the  history  of  its  author, 
whenever  that  was  accessible.  He  must  also  have  mastered 
thoroughly  the  social  and  political  history  relating  to  all 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE         9 

this  mass  of  literature.  But  this  is  still  less  than  half  his 
work.  For,  being  an  authority  upon  two  literatures,  his 
study  of  French,  both  old  and  new  French,  must  have  been 
even  more  extensive  than  his  study  of  English.  And  all  his 
work  had  to  be  read  as  a  master  reads;  there  was  little  more 
amusement  in  the  whole  from  beginning  to  end.  The  only 
pleasure  could  be  in  results;  but  these  results  are  very  great. 
Nothing  is  more  difficult  in  this  world  than  to  read  a  book 
and  then  to  express  clearly  and  truly  in  a  few  lines  exactly 
what  the  literary  value  of  the  book  is.  There  are  not  more 
than  twenty  people  in  the  world  who  can  do  this,  for  the 
experience  as  well  as  the  capacity  required  must  be  enor 
mous.  Very  few  of  us  can  hope  to  become  even  third  or 
fourth  class  critics  after  a  lifetime  of  study.  But  we  can 
all  learn  to  read;  and  that  is  not  by  any  means  a  small 
feat.  The  great  critics  can  best  show  us  the  way  to  do 
this,  by  their  judgment. 

Yet  after  all,  the  greatest  of  critics  is  the  public  —  not 
the  public  of  a  day  or  a  generation,  but  the  public  of  cen 
turies,  the  consensus  of  national  opinion  or  of  human  opin 
ion  about  a  book  that  has  been  subjected  to  the  awful  test 
of  time.  Reputations  are  made  not  by  critics,  but  by  the 
accumulation  of  human  opinion  through  hundreds  of  years. 
And  human  opinion  is  not  sharply  defined  like  the  opinion 
of  a  trained  critic;  it  cannot  explain;  it  is  vague,  like  a  great 
emotion  of  which  we  cannot  exactly  describe  the  nature;  it 
is  based  upon  feeling  rather  than  upon  thinking;  it  only 
says,  "we  like  this."  Yet  there  is  no  judgment  so  sure  as 
this  kind  of  judgment,  for  it  is  the  outcome  of  an  enormous 
experience.  The  test  of  a  good  book  ought  always  to  be  the 
test  which  human  opinion,  working  for  generations,  applies. 
And  this  is  very  simple. 

The  test  of  a  great  book  is  whether  we  want  to  read  it 
only  once  or  more  than  once.  Any  really  great  book  we 


10       READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

want  to  read  the  second  time  even  more  than  we  wanted 
to  read  it  the  first  time;  and  every  additional  time  that  we 
read  it  we  find  new  meanings  and  new  beauties  in  it.  A 
book  that  a  person  of  education  and  good  taste  does  not 
care  to  read  more  than  once  is  very  probably  not  worth 
much.  Some  time  ago  there  was  a  very  clever  discussion  go 
ing  on  regarding  the  art  of  the  great  French  novelist,  Zola; 
some  people  claimed  that  he  possessed  absolute  genius; 
others  claimed  that  he  had  only  talent  of  a  very  remarkable 
kind.  The  battle  of  argument  brought  out  some  strange  ex 
travagances  of  opinion.  But  suddenly  a  very  great  critic 
simply  put  this  question:  "How  many  of  you  have  read,  or 
would  care  to  read,  one  of  Zola's  books  a  second  time?" 
There  was  no  answer;  the  fact  was  settled.  Probably  no  one 
would  read  a  book  by  Zola  more  than  once;  and  this  is 
proof  positive  that  there  is  no  great  genius  in  them,  and  no 
great  mastery  of  the  highest  form  of  feeling.  Shallow  or 
false  any  book  must  be,  that,  although  bought  by  a  hun 
dred  thousand  readers,  is  never  read  more  than  once.  But 
we  cannot  consider  the  judgment  of  a  single  individual  in 
fallible.  The  opinion  that  makes  a  book  great  must  be  the 
opinion  of  many.  For  even  the  greatest  critics  are  apt  to 
have  certain  dullnesses,  certain  inappreciations.  Carlyle, 
for  example,  could  not  endure  Browning;  Byron  could  not 
endure  some  of  the  greatest  of  English  poets.  A  man  must 
be  many-sided  to  utter  a  trustworthy  estimate  of  many 
books.  We  may  doubt  the  judgment  of  the  single  critic  at 
times.  But  there  is  no  doubt  possible  in  regard  to  the  judg 
ment  of  generations.  Even  if  we  cannot  at  once  perceive 
anything  good  in  a  book  which  has  been  admired  and 
praised  for  hundreds  of  years,  we  may  be  sure  that  by  try 
ing,  by  studying  it  carefully,  we  shall  at  last  be  able  to  feel 
the  reason  of  this  admiration  and  praise.  The  best  of  all  li 
braries  for  a  poor  man  would  be  a  library  entirely  composed 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE       11 

of  such  great  works  only,  books  which  have  passed  the  test 
of  time. 

This  then  would  be  the  most  important  guide  for  us  in 
the  choice  of  reading.  We  should  read  only  the  books  that 
we  want  to  read  more  than  once,  nor  should  we  buy  any 
others,  unless  we  have  some  special  reason  for  so  investing 
money.  The  second  fact  demanding  attention  is  the  general 
character  of  the  value  that  lies  hidden  within  all  such  great 
books.  A  great  book  is  not  apt  to  be  comprehended  by  a 
young  person  at  the  first  reading  except  in  a  superficial  way. 
Only  the  surface,  the  narrative,  is  absorbed  and  enjoyed. 
No  young  man  can  possibly  see  at  first  reading  the  qualities 
of  a  great  book.  Remember  that  it  has  taken  humanity  in 
many  cases  hundreds  of  years  to  find  out  all  that  there  is  in 
such  a  book.  But  according  to  a  man's  experience  of  life, 
the  text  will  unfold  new  meanings  to  him.  The  book  that 
delighted  us  at  eighteen,  if  it  be  a  good  book,  will  delight  us 
much  more  at  twenty-five,  and  it  will  prove  like  a  new  book 
to  us  at  thirty  years  of  age.  At  forty  we  shall  re-read  it, 
wondering  why  we  never  saw  how  beautiful  it  was  before. 
At  fifty  or  sixty  years  of  age  the  same  facts  will  repeat 
themselves.  A  great  book  grows  exactly  in  proportion  to 
the  growth  of  the  reader's  mind.  It  was  the  discovery  of 
this  extraordinary  fact  by  generations  of  people  long  dead 
that  made  the  greatness  of  such  works  as  those  of  Shake 
speare,  of  Dante,  or  of  Goethe.  Perhaps  Goethe  can  give  us 
at  this  moment  the  best  illustration.  He  wrote  a  number  of 
little  stories  in  prose,  which  children  like,  because  to  chil 
dren  they  have  all  the  charm  of  fairy  tales.  But  he  never  in 
tended  them  for  fairy  tales;  he  wrote  them  for  experienced 
minds.  A  young  man  finds  very  serious  reading  in  them;  a 
middle  aged  man  discovers  an  extraordinary  depth  in  their 
least  utterance;  and  an  old  man  will  find  in  them  all  the 
world's  philosophy,  all  the  wisdom  of  life.  If  one  is  very 


12       READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

dull,  he  may  not  see  much  in  them,  but  just  in  proportion 
as  he  is  a  superior  man,  and  in  proportion  as  his  knowledge 
of  life  has  been  extensive,  so  will  he  discover  the  greatness 
of  the  mind  that  conceived  them. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  authors  of  such  books  could 
have  preconceived  the  entire  range  and  depth  of  that  which 
they  put  into  their  work.  Great  art  works  unconsciously 
without  ever  suspecting  that  it  is  great;  and  the  larger  the 
genius  of  a  writer,  the  less  chance  there  is  of  his  ever  know 
ing  that  he  has  genius;  for  his  power  is  less  likely  to  be  dis 
covered  by  the  public  until  long  after  he  is  dead.  The  great 
things  done  in  literature  have  not  usually  been  done  by 
men  who  thought  themselves  great.  Many  thousand  years 
ago  some  wanderer  in  Arabia,  looking  at  the  stars  of  the 
night,  and  thinking  about  the  relation  of  man  to  the  unseen 
powers  that  shaped  the  world,  uttered  all  his  heart  in  cer 
tain  verses  that  have  been  preserved  to  us  in  the  Book  of 
Job.  To  him  the  sky  was  a  solid  vault;  of  that  which  might 
exist  beyond  it,  he  never  even  dreamed.  Since  his  time  how 
vast  has  been  the  expansion  of  our  astronomical  knowledge! 
We  now  know  thirty  millions  of  suns,  all  of  which  are  prob 
ably  attended  by  planets,  giving  a  probable  total  of  three 
hundred  millions  of  other  worlds  within  sight  of  our  astro 
nomical  instruments.  Probably  multitudes  of  these  are  in 
habited  by  intelligent  life;  it  is  even  possible  that  within  a 
few  years  more  we  shall  obtain  proof  positive  of  the  exist 
ence  of  an  older  civilization  than  our  own  upon  the  planet 
Mars.  How  vast  a  difference  between  our  conception  of  the 
universe  and  Job's  conception  of  it.  Yet  the  poem  of  that 
simple-minded  Arab  or  Jew  has  not  lost  one  particle  of  its 
beauty  and  value  because  of  this  difference.  Quite  the  con 
trary!  With  every  new  astronomical  discovery  the  words  of 
Job  take  grander  meanings  to  us,  simply  because  he  was 
truly  a  great  poet  and  spoke  only  the  truth  that  was  in  his 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE       13 

heart  thousands  of  years  ago.  Very  anciently  also  there  was 
a  Greek  story-teller  who  wrote  a  little  story  about  a  boy  and 
girl  in  the  country,  called  Daphnis  and  Chloe.  It  was  a  little 
story,  telling  in  the  simplest  language  possible  how  that  boy 
and  girl  fell  in  love  with  each  other,  and  did  not  know  why, 
and  all  the  innocent  things  they  said  to  each  other,  and  how 
grown-up  people  kindly  laughed  at  them  and  taught  them 
some  of  the  simplest  laws  of  life.  What  a  trifling  subject, 
some  might  think.  But  that  story,  translated  into  every 
language  in  the  world,  still  reads  like  a  new  story  to  us;  and 
every  time  we  re-read  it,  it  appears  still  more  beautiful,  be 
cause  it  teaches  a  few  true  and  tender  things  about  inno 
cence  and  the  feeling  of  youth.  It  never  can  grow  old,  any 
more  than  the  girl  and  boy  whom  it  describes.  Or,  to  de 
scend  to  later  times,  about  three  hundred  years  ago  a  French 
priest  conceived  the  idea  of  writing  down  the  history  of  a 
student  who  had  been  charmed  by  a  wanton  woman,  and 
led  by  her  into  many  scenes  of  disgrace  and  pain.  This  little 
book,  called  Manon  Lescaut,  describes  for  us  the  society  of  a 
vanished  time,  a  time  when  people  wore  swords  and  pow 
dered  their  hair,  a  time  when  everything  was  as  different  as 
possible  from  the  life  of  to-day.  But  the  story  is  just  as  true 
of  our  own  time  as  of  any  time  in  civilization;  the  pain  and 
the  sorrow  affect  us  just  as  if  they  were  our  own;  and  the 
woman,  who  is  not  really  bad,  but  only  weak  and  selfish, 
charms  the  reader  almost  as  much  as  she  charmed  her  vic 
tim,  until  the  tragedy  ends.  Here  again  is  one  of  the  world's 
great  books  that  cannot  die.  Or,  to  take  one  more  example 
out  of  a  possible  hundred,  consider  the  stories  of  Hans  An 
dersen.  He  conceived  the  notion  that  moral  truths  and  so 
cial  philosophy  could  be  better  taught  through  little  fairy 
tales  and  child  stories  than  in  almost  any  other  way;  and 
with  the  help  of  hundreds  of  old-fashioned  tales,  he  made  a 
new  series  of  wonderful  stories  that  have  become  a  part  of 


14       READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

every  library  and  are  read  in  all  countries  by  grown-up 
people  much  more  than  by  children.  There  is  in  this  aston 
ishing  collection  of  stories,  a  story  about  a  mermaid,  which  I 
suppose  you  have  all  read.  Of  course  there  can  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  mermaid;  from  one  point  of  view  the  story  is 
quite  absurd.  But  the  emotions  of  unselfishness  and  love 
and  loyalty  which  the  story  expresses  are  immortal,  and  so 
beautiful  that  we  forget  about  all  the  unreality  of  the 
framework;  we  see  only  the  eternal  truth  behind  the  fable. 
You  will  understand  now  exactly  what  I  mean  by  a  great 
book.  What  about  the  choice  of  books?  Some  years  ago 
you  will  remember  that  an  Englishman  of  science,  Sir  John 
Lubbock,  wrote  a  list  of  what  he  called  the  best  books  in 
the  world  —  or  at  least  the  best  hundred  books.  Then  some 
publishers  published  the  hundred  books  in  cheap  form. 
Following  the  example  of  Sir  John,  other  literary  men  made 
different  lists  of  what  they  thought  the  best  hundred  books 
in  existence;  and  now  quite  enough  time  has  passed  to  show 
us  the  value  of  these  experiments.  They  have  proved  ut 
terly  worthless,  except  to  the  publishers.  Many  persons 
may  buy  the  hundred  books;  but  very  few  read  them.  And 
this  is  not  because  Sir  John  Lubbock's  idea  was  bad;  it  is 
because  no  one  man  can  lay  down  a  definite  course  of  read 
ing  for  the  great  mass  of  differently  constituted  minds.  Sir 
John  expressed  only  his  opinion  of  what  most  appealed  to 
him;  another  man  of  letters  would  have  made  a  different 
list;  probably  no  two  men  of  letters  would  have  made  ex 
actly  the  same  one.  The  choice  of  great  books  must,  under 
all  circumstances,  be  an  individual  one.  In  short,  you  must 
choose  for  yourselves  according  to  the  light  that  is  in  you. 
Very  few  persons  are  so  many-sided  as  to  feel  inclined  to 
give  their  best  attention  to  many  different  kinds  of  litera 
ture.  In  the  average  of  cases  it  is  better  for  a  man  to  con 
fine  himself  to  a  small  class  of  subjects  —  the  subjects  best 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE       15 

according  with  his  natural  powers  and  inclinations,  the  sub 
jects  that  please  him.  And  no  man  can  decide  for  us,  with 
out  knowing  our  personal  character  and  disposition  per 
fectly  well  and  being  in  sympathy  with  it,  where  our  powers 
lie.  But  one  thing  is  easy  to  do  —  that  is,  to  decide,  first, 
what  subject  in  literature  has  already  given  you  pleasure; 
to  decide,  secondly,  what  is  the  best  that  has  been  written 
upon  that  subject,  and  then  to  study  that  best  to  the  exclu 
sion  of  ephemeral  and  trifling  books  which  profess  to  deal 
with  the  same  theme,  but  which  have  not  yet  obtained  the 
approbation  of  great  critics  or  of  a  great  public  opinion. 

Those  books  which  have  obtained  both  are  not  so  many  in 
number  as  you  might  suppose.  Each  great  civilization  has 
produced  only  two  or  three  of  the  first  rank,  if  we  except  the 
single  civilization  of  the  Greeks.  The  sacred  books  embody 
ing  the  teaching  of  all  great  religions  necessarily  take  place 
in  the  first  rank,  even  as  literary  productions;  for  they  have 
been  polished  and  repolished,  and  have  been  given  the  high 
est  possible  literary  perfection  of  which  the  language  in 
which  they  are  written  is  capable.  The  great  epic  poems 
which  express  the  ideals  of  races,  these  also  deserve  a  first 
place.  Thirdly,  the  masterpieces  of  drama,  as  reflecting 
life,  must  be  considered  to  belong  to  the  highest  literature. 
But  how  many  books  are  thus  represented?  Not  very  many. 
The  best,  like  diamonds,  will  never  be  found  in  great 
quantities. 

Besides  such  general  indications  as  I  have  thus  ventured, 
something  may  be  said  regarding  a  few  choice  books  — 
those  which  a  student  should  wish  to  possess  good  copies  of 
and  read  all  his  life.  There  are  not  many  of  these.  For  Euro 
pean  students  it  would  be  necessary  to  name  a  number  of 
Greek  authors.  But  without  a  study  of  the  classic  tongues 
such  authors  could  be  of  much  less  use  to  the  students  of 
this  country;  moreover,  a  considerable  knowledge  of  Greek 


16       READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

life  and  Greek  civilization  is  necessary  to  quicken  apprecia 
tion  of  them.  Such  knowledge  is  best  gained  through  en 
gravings,  pictures,  coins,  statues  —  through  those  artistic 
objects  which  enable  the  imagination  to  see  what  has  exist 
ed;  and  as  yet  the  artistic  side  of  classical  study  is  scarcely 
possible  in  Japan,  for  want  of  pictorial  and  other  material. 
I  shall  therefore  say  very  little  regarding  the  great  books 
that  belong  to  this  category.  But  as  the  whole  foundation 
of  European  literature  rests  upon  classical  study,  the  stu 
dent  should  certainly  attempt  to  master  the  outlines  of 
Greek  mythology,  and  the  character  of  the  traditions 
which  inspired  the  best  of  Greek  literature  and  drama. 
You  can  scarcely  open  an  English  book  belonging  to  any 
high  class  of  literature,  in  which  you  will  not  find  allusions 
to  Greek  beliefs,  Greek  stories,  or  Greek  plays.  The  mythol 
ogy  is  almost  necessary  for  you;  but  the  vast  range  of  the 
subject  might  well  deter  most  of  you  from  attempting  a 
thorough  study  of  it.  A  thorough  study  of  it,  however,  is 
not  necessary.  What  is  necessary  is  an  outline  only;  and  a 
good  book,  capable  of  giving  you  that  outline  in  a  vivid 
and  attractive  manner  would  be  of  inestimable  service.  In 
French  and  German  there  are  many  such  books;  in  English, 
I  know  of  only  one,  a  volume  in  Bonn's  Library,  Keightley's 
Mythology  of  Ancient  Greece  and  Italy.  It  is  not  an  expen 
sive  work;  and  it  has  the  exceptional  quality  of  teaching  in 
a  philosophical  spirit.  As  for  the  famous  Greek  books,  the 
value  of  most  of  them  for  you  must  be  small,  because  the 
number  of  adequate  translations  is  small.  I  should  begin  by 
saying  that  all  verse  translations  are  useless.  No  verse 
translation  from  the  Greek  can  reproduce  the  Greek  verse 
—  we  have  only  twenty  or  thirty  lines  of  Homer  translated 
by  Tennyson,  and  a  few  lines  of  other  Greek  poets  trans 
lated  by  equally  able  men,  which  are  at  all  satisfactory. 
Under  all  circumstances  take  a  prose  translation  when  you 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE       17 

wish  to  study  a  Greek  or  Latin  author.  We  should  of  course 
consider  Homer  first.  I  do  not  think  that  you  can  afford 
not  to  read  something  of  Homer.  There  are  two  excellent 
prose  translations  in  English,  one  of  the  Iliad  and  one  of  the 
Odyssey.  The  latter  is  for  you  the  more  important  of  the 
two  great  poems.  The  references  to  it  are  innumerable  in 
all  branches  of  literature;  and  these  references  refer  usually 
to  the  poetry  of  its  theme,  for  the  Odyssey  is  much  more  a 
romance  than  is  the  Iliad.  The  advantage  of  the  prose 
translation  by  Lang  and  Butcher  is  that  it  preserves  some 
thing  of  the  rolling  sound  and  music  of  the  Greek  verse, 
though  it  is  only  prose.  That  book  I  should  certainly  con 
sider  worth  keeping  constantly  by  you;  its  utility  will  ap 
pear  to  you  at  a  later  day.  The  great  Greek  tragedies  have 
all  been  translated;  but  I  should  not  so  strongly  recommend 
these  translations  to  you.  It  would  be  just  as  well,  in  most 
cases,  to  familiarize  yourselves  with  the  stories  of  the  dramas 
through  other  sources;  and  there  are  hundreds  of  these. 
You  should  at  least  know  the  subject  of  the  great  dramas 
of  Sophocles,  ^Eschylus,  and  above  all  Euripides.  Greek 
drama  was  constructed  upon  a  plan  that  requires  much 
study  to  understand  correctly;  it  is  not  necessary  that  you 
should  understand  these  matters  as  an  antiquarian  does, 
but  it  is  necessary  to  know  something  of  the  stories  of  the 
great  plays.  As  for  comedy,  the  works  of  Aristophanes  are 
quite  exceptional  in  their  value  and  interest.  They  require 
very  little  explanation;  they  make  us  laugh  to-day  just  as 
heartily  as  they  made  the  Athenians  laugh  thousands  of 
years  ago;  and  they  belong  to  immortal  literature.  There 
is  the  Bohn  translation  in  two  volumes,  which  I  would 
strongly  recommend.  Aristophanes  is  one  of  the  great 
Greek  dramatists  whom  we  can  read  over  and  over  again, 
gaining  at  every  reading.  Of  the  lyrical  poets  there  is  also 
one  translation  likely  to  become  an  English  classic,  although 


18       READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

a  modern  one;  that  is  Lang's  translation  of  Theocritus,  a 
tiny  little  book,  but  very  precious  of  its  kind.  You  see  I  am 
mentioning  very  few;  but  these  few  would  mean  a  great 
deal  for  you,  should  you  use  them  properly.  Among  later 
Greek  work,  work  done  in  the  decline  of  the  old  civilization, 
there  is  one  masterpiece  that  the  world  will  never  become 
tired  of  —  I  mentioned  it  before,  the  story  of  Daphnis  and 
Chloe.  This  has  been  translated  into  every  language,  and  I 
am  sorry  to  say  that  the  best  translation  is  not  English,  but 
French  —  the  version  of  Amyot.  But  there  are  many  Eng 
lish  translations.  That  book  you  certainly  ought  to  read. 
About  the  Latin  authors,  it  is  not  here  necessary  to  say 
much.  There  are  very  good  prose  translations  of  Virgil  and 
Horace,  but  the  value  of  these  to  you  cannot  be  very  great 
without  a  knowledge  of  Latin.  However,  the  story  of  the 
yEneid  is  necessary  to  know,  and  it  were  best  read  in  the 
version  of  Conington.  In  the  course  of  your  general  educa 
tion  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  learning  something  regarding 
the  chief  Latin  writers  and  thinkers;  but  there  is  one  immor 
tal  book  that  you  may  not  have  often  seen  the  name  of;  and 
it  is  a  book  everybody  should  read  —  I  mean  the  Golden 
Ass  of  Apuleius.  You  have  this  in  a  good  English  transla 
tion.  It  is  only  a  story  of  sorcery,  but  one  of  the  most  won 
derful  stories  ever  written,  and  it  belongs  to  world  literature 
rather  than  to  the  literature  of  a  time. 

But  the  Greek  myths,  although  eternally  imperishable 
in  their  beauty,  are  not  more  intimately  related  to  English 
literature  than  are  the  myths  of  the  ancient  English  religion, 
the  religion  of  the  Northern  races,  which  has  left  its  echoes 
all  through  our  forms  of  speech,  even  in  the  names  of  the 
days  of  the  week.  A  student  of  English  literature  ought  to 
know  something  about  Northern  mythology.  It  is  full  of 
beauty  also,  beauty  of  another  and  stranger  kind;  and  it  em 
bodies  one  of  the  noblest  warrior-faiths  that  ever  existed, 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE       19 

the  religion  of  force  and  courage.  You  have  now  in  the  li 
brary  a  complete  collection  of  Northern  poetry,  I  mean  the 
two  volumes  of  the  CorpusPoeticumBoreali.  Unfortunately 
you  have  not  as  yet  a  good  collection  of  the  Sagas  and  Ed- 
das.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  vaster  subject  of  Greek  myth 
ology,  there  is  an  excellent  small  book  in  English,  giving  an 
outline  of  all  that  is  important  —  I  mean  necessary  for  you 
—  in  regard  to  both  the  religion  and  the  literature  of  the 
Northern  races,  Mallet's  Northern  Antiquities.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  contributed  the  most  valuable  portion  of  the  transla 
tions  in  this  little  book;  and  these  translations  have  stood 
the  test  of  time  remarkably  well.  The  introductory  chap 
ters  by  Bishop  Percy  are  old-fashioned,  but  this  fact  does 
not  in  the  least  diminish  the  stirring  value  of  the  volume.  I 
think  it  is  one  of  the  books  that  every  student  should  try  to 
possess. 

With  regard  to  the  great  modern  masterpieces  translated 
into  English  from  other  tongues,  I  can  only  say  that  it  is 
better  to  read  them  in  the  originals,  if  you  can.  If  you  can 
read  Goethe's  Faust  in  German,  do  not  read  it  in  English; 
and  if  you  can  read  Heine  in  German,  the  French  transla 
tion  in  prose,  which  he  superintended,  and  the  English 
translations  (there  are  many  of  them)  in  verse  can  be  of  no 
use  to  you.  But  if  German  be  too  difficult,  then  read  Faust 
in  the  prose  version  of  Hayward,  as  revised  by  Dr.  Buch- 
heim.  You  have  that  in  the  library;  and  it  is  the  best  of  the 
kind  in  existence.  Faust  is  a  book  that  a  man  should  buy 
and  keep,  and  read  many  times  during  his  life.  As  for 
Heine,  he  is  a  world  poet,  but  he  loses  a  great  deal  in  trans 
lation;  and  I  can  only  recommend  the  French  prose  version 
of  him;  the  English  versions  of  Browning  and  Lazarus  and 
others  are  often  weak.  Some  years  ago  a  series  of  extraordi 
nary  translations  of  Heine  appeared  in  Blackwood's  Maga 
zine;  but  these  have  not  appeared,  I  believe,  in  book  form. 


20       READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE 

As  for  Dante,  I  do  not  know  whether  he  can  make  a 
strong  appeal  to  you  in  any  language  except  his  own;  and 
you  must  understand  the  Middle  Ages  very  well  to  feel 
how  wonderful  he  was.  I  might  say  something  similar  about 
other  great  Italian  poets.  Of  the  French  dramatists,  you 
must  study  Moliere;  he  is  next  in  importance  only  to  Shake 
speare.  But  do  not  read  him  in  any  translation.  Here  I 
should  say  positively,  that  one  who  cannot  read  French 
might  as  well  leave  Moliere  alone;  the  English  language 
cannot  reproduce  his  delicacies  of  wit  and  allusion. 

As  for  modern  English  literature,  I  have  tried  in  the 
course  of  my  lectures  to  indicate  the  few  books  deserving  of 
a  place  in  world-literature;  and  I  need  scarcely  repeat  them 
here.  Going  back  a  little  further,  however,  I  should  like  to 
remind  you  again  of  the  extraordinary  merit  of  Malory's 
book  the  M orte  d' Arthur,  and  to  say  that  it  is  one  of  the 
very  few  that  you  should  buy  and  keep  and  read  often.  The 
whole  spirit  of  chivalry  is  in  that  book;  and  I  need  scarcely 
tell  you  how  deep  is  the  relation  of  the  spirit  of  chivalry  to 
all  modern  English  literature.  I  do  not  recommend  you  to 
read  Milton,  unless  you  intend  to  make  certain  special  stud 
ies  of  language;  the  linguistic  value  of  Milton  is  based 
upon  Greek  and  Latin  literature.  As  for  his  lyrics  —  that  is 
another  matter.  Those  ought  to  be  studied.  As  there  is  lit 
tle  more  to  say,  except  by  way  of  suggestion,  I  think  that 
you  ought,  every  one  of  you,  to  have  a  good  copy  of  Shake 
speare,  and  to  read  Shakespeare  through  once  every  year, 
not  caring  at  first  whether  you  can  understand  all  the  sen 
tences  or  not;  that  knowledge  can  be  acquired  at  a  later  day. 
I  am  sure  that  if  you  follow  this  advice  you  will  find  Shake 
speare  become  larger  every  time  that  you  read  him,  and 
that  at  last  he  will  begin  to  exercise  a  very  strong  and  very 
healthy  influence  upon  your  methods  of  thinking  and  feel 
ing.  A  man  does  not  require  to  be  a  great  scholar  in  order  to 


READING  IN  RELATION  TO  LITERATURE       21 

read  Shakespeare.  And  what  is  true  of  reading  Shakespeare, 
you  will  find  to  be  true  also  in  lesser  degree  of  all  the  world's 
great  books.  You  will  find  it  true  of  Goethe's  Faust.  You 
will  find  it  true  of  the  best  chapters  in  the  poems  of  Homer. 
You  will  find  it  true  of  the  best  plays  of  Moliere.  You  will 
find  it  true  of  Dante,  and  of  those  books  in  the  English  Bible 
about  which  I  gave  a  short  lecture  last  year.  And  therefore 
I  do  not  think  that  I  can  better  conclude  these  remarks 
than  by  repeating  an  old  but  very  excellent  piece  of  advice 
which  has  been  given  to  young  readers:  "Whenever  you 
hear  of  a  new  book  being  published,  read  an  old  one." 


8033 


000  737  991     0        _ 

Teachers  everywhere  are  cordially  welcoming  our  series 
of  Atlantic  Readings;  for  material  not  otherwise  available 
is  here  published  for  classroom  use  in  convenient  and  inex 
pensive  form.  In  most  cases  the  selections  reprinted  have 
been  suggested  by  teachers  in  schools  and  colleges  where 
a  need  for  a  particular  essay  or  story  has  been  urgently 
felt.  Supplied  for  one  institution,  the  reprint  has  created 
an  immediate  market  elsewhere. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press  most  warmly  invites  con 
ference  and  correspondence  that  will  suggest  additions  to 
this  growing  list.  It  is  of  course  apparent  from  the  titles 
below  that  the  material  is  chosen  only  in  part  from  the  files 
of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

The  titles  already  published  follow:  — 


1.  THE  LIE 

By  Mary  Antin  15o 

2.  RUGGS^R.O.T.C. 

By  William  Addleman  Ganoe 

15o 

3.  JUNGLE  NIGHT 

By  William  Beebe  15c 

4.  AN  ENGLISHWOMAN'S  MES 

SAGE 

By  Mrs.  A.  Burnett-Smith      15o 

5.  A   FATHER   TO    HIS   FRESH 

MAN  SON 

By  Edward  Sanford  Martin    15o 

6.  A   PORT   SAID    MISCELLANY 

By  William  McFee  15c 

7.  EDUCATION:  THB  MASTEKT  OP 

THE  ARTS  OF  LIFE 

By  Arthur  E.  Morgan  15o 

8.  INTENSIVE  LIVING 

By  Cornelia  A.  P.  Comer        15o 


9.  THE  PRELIMINARIES 
By  Cornelia  A.  P.  Comer 


15o 


10.  THE   MORAL  EQUIVALENT 

OF  WAR 

By  William  James  15o 

11.  THE  STUDY  OF  POETRY 

By  Matthew  Arnold  lao 

12.  BOOKS 

By  Arthur  C.  Benson  15o 

13.  ON  COMPOSITION 

By  Lafcadio  Hearn  15o 

14.  THE  BASIC  PROBLEM   OF 

DEMOCRACY 

By  Walter  Lippmann  15o 

15.  THE  PILGRIMS  OF 

PLYMOUTH 

By  Henry  Cabot  Lodge          25o 

16.  AFTER  THIRTY-FIVE  YEARS 

By  Professor  Frederick  J.  E. 
Woodbridge  15o 


17.  ON  READING   IN  RELATION 
TO  LITERATURE  15o 

By  Lafcadio  Hearn 

We  are  constantly  adding  new  titles  to  this  series 

Address  The  Educational  Department 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,  INC. 

8  ARLINGTON  STREET,  BOSTON   (17) 


ATLANTIC  TEXTS 

TEXTBOOKS  IN  LIBRARY  FORM 


ATLANTIC  CLASSICS,  First  Series SI .  50 

ATLANTIC  CLASSICS,  Second  Series 1 . 50 

Both  volumes  collected  and  edited  by  ELLERT  SEDQWICK, 

Editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

For  classes  in  American  literature. 
ESSAYS  AND   ESSAY-WRITING 1 .25 

Collected  and  edited  by  WILLIAM  M.  TANNER,  University 

of  Texas. 

For  literature  and  composition  classes. 
ATLANTIC   NARRATIVES,  First  Series 1.25 

For  college  use  in  classes  studying  the  short  story. 
ATLANTIC   NARRATIVES,  Second  Series 1 . 25 

For  secondary  schools. 

Both  volumes  collected  and  edited  by  CHARLES  SWAIN 

THOMAS,  Editorial  department  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly 

Press,  and  Lecturer  at  Harvard  University. 
ATLANTIC  PROSE  AND   POETRY 1 .00 

Collected  and  edited  by  CHARLES  SWAIN  THOMAS  and 

HARRY  G.  PAUL  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

A  literary  reader  for  upper  grammar  grades  and  junior  high 

schools. 
THE  PROFESSION  OF  JOURNALISM 1.25 

Collected  and  edited  by  WILLARD  G.  BLEYER,  University 

of  Wisconsin. 

For  college  use. 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  AND   ITS  MAKERS 1.00 

By  M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE,  Editorial  department  of  the 

Atlantic  Monthly  Press. 

Biographical  and  literary  matter  for  the  English  class. 
WRITING  THROUGH  READING 90 

By  ROBERT  M.  GAY,  Simmons  College. 

A  short  course  in  composition   for  colleges  and  normal 

schools. 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS:  The  Principle  and  the  Prac 
tice 2.50 

Edited  by  STEPHEN  P.  DUGOAN,  College  of  the  City  of  New 

York. 

A  basic  text  on  international  relations. 
THE   LIGHT:  An  Educational  Pageant 65 

By  CATHERINE  T.  BRYCE,  Yale  University. 

Especially  suitable  for  public  presentation  at  Teachers' 

Conventions. 
PATRONS  OF  DEMOCRACY 80 

By  DALLAS  LORE  SHARP,  Boston  University. 

For  classes  interested  in  discussing  democracy  in  our  public 

schools. 
AMERICANS  BY  ADOPTION 1.50 

By  JOSEPH  HUSBAND. 

For  Americanization  courses. 

THE   VOICE   OF    SCIENCE    IN    NINETEENTH-CEN 
TURY  LITERATURE 2.00 

Collected  and  edited  by  ROBERT  E.  ROGERS  and  HENRY 

G.  PEARSON,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology. 


THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,   INC. 

8   ARLINGTON   STREET,    BOSTON    (17) 


